The Season Thus Far, in Three Chapters.

Prologue:  Smokys Love

View from the Mt. Sterling Trail

The week after the wonderful morning hunt in Goethe I described a couple of blog posts ago I took off on a camping trip to Great Smoky Mountain National Park, one of my favorite places on earth.  My Cousin George, the one who accompanied me to Catalina on my second hunt there, met me there and we had a great few days doing day hikes in the area. The fall colors were just starting to put on their show. We climbed Mt. Sterling, the easternmost tall mountain in GSMNP, and hiked out from Newfound Gap along the Appalachian Trail to The Jumpoff, an amazing perch above a thousand foot cliff.  We had absolutely perfect weather (besides some fog at The Jumpoff) and heard the spine chilling eeriness of the elk bugling Cataloochee Valley, where we camped. 

Chapter 1:  Love, Divided

When I returned from the trip something had slipped with my hunting momentum.  This blog aside, to this day my first love in the woods is hiking and exploring.  You can almost say its unnatural for me to sit still for very long, although I've definitely done it enough to realize you have experiences in a tree stand you just don't get from wandering.  Conversely, wandering has a lot of advantages too.  

I had a permit for the Lake Panasoffkee archery hunt, which sounded like a great idea when I bought it.  As the time approached though, it was appealing less and less.  I didn't draw a doe tag, and the antler limit is a pretty high standard there.  Those things coupled with a complete lack of scouting in the area caused me to scrap the whole idea and simply go back to the areas of Goethe I'm familiar with for the last weekend of archery there.  

For the Friday hunt I really didn't have time to make it all the way out to the island, so I set up near a scrape in the thick woods on the way, where I've jumped several deer while walking past.  This area was close enough to the adjacent private land to actually hear kids playing and parents calling, so not quiet as peaceful as I'd hoped.  At about the end of shooting light I heard a deer walk past just out of sight, but never caught sight of it.  It was a peaceful evening but I was feeling antsy.

The next morning I made it out to my usual spot.  It was a nice sit but I was really feeling antsy.  The hiker in me was almost screaming.  Fall was full blown in the air, and there were a lot of places that needed to be seen.  I suffered though the morning, seeing nothing, not even squirrels.  Something had to be done.

The next Saturday morning I did something.  I eschewed venatic endeavors for a 14-mile hike on the south loop of the Citrus Tract of Withlacoochee State Forest.  I got up just slightly later than I would to hunt and made it to the trail head a few minutes after dawn.  I surprised myself how well I managed the hike considering it was my longest on by far in over a year.  The day was perfect, amazing blue skies, fall wildflowers everywhere.  The trail passes a few caves and one large sinkhole pond, one of the few places in Florida where tripping over a rock on the trail is a real concern. Parts of it also follow an old stagecoach route through the area, including a loop around the pond they used to water the horses.  The northeast section contained beautifully well-maintained Sandhill habitat that was covered in fall flowers.

Lopsided Indian-grass in the dawn's rays.  Sublime.

Chapter 2:  Walkabout

The following weekend was muzzleloading season in Goethe.   It was also the time period that Hurricane Sandy was churning away off the coast.  I feel somewhat guilty putting this in writing considering the pain it inflicted on many people, but it brought us here in Florida some great weather.  It was a bit breezy though, so much so that I wasn't super comfortable with the idea of climbing a pine tree with a tree stand.  My coworker Donnie, the wise hunter, gave me a great piece of advice:  "Why don't you just go walk around?"  Loves, reunited!  And so Saturday afternoon found me tracing a 5 mile loop around the northern tip of Goethe, .45 CVA rifle in hand, carefully easing around corners and stopping to listen here and there.  Now let me just say, doing this randomly on public land is probably not a great idea, but the places I was going I was about as sure as I can be that there were no other humans.  Not only was it a limited entry hunt, but I was far from a parking area.  And of course I was liberally covered in blaze orange.

The hunt was antlered-only, so the two does that I might have had a shot at didn't count but it was still a lot of fun.   On the road along the far western edge of the forest I found where another hunter got lucky at some point, a dried brown crusty puddle of blood in the sand with clear drag marks leading to the south.  That one had a long walk, unless they came in from some private land adjacent.  

To complete the loop I had to do some serious bushwacking through intense briar beds.  A few times it seemed that if I fell I might bleed out from the thorns before I extracted myself.  

It was a really nice hike.

Skunk Ape print along a woods road. 

View from the parking area, right as I made it back.

Chapter 3:  Big Guns

By the time my General Gun permit for Goethe rolled around I was centered again and more into a morning in a tree.  I purposefully signed up for the second of the three slots, three days mid-week.  However, I didn't anticipate being as low on vacation hours as I am now, so I picked the one day with the best forecast and went with a morning hunt. 

I have to say getting there went well.  I was able to follow my landmarks in the dark with no problem (figures since this would be the last trip for a while) and was up my tree with Aunt Mary's .270 in plenty of time.

I tried something that I've never used before, one of those "Buck Bombs".  Yeah, just what it sounds like.  Much like a flea bomb but instead pumping aerosolized doe estrus urine into the general area.  I can't say that it made a difference.  That is, besides making me feel slightly like an idiot for paying $9.95 for a can of deer piss to spray into the air. 

The weather was nice and cool, no need for the Therma-Cell.  It was a bit overcast at first but the low clouds started to break up around the time the sun cleared the pines.  Knowing that this would be my last and only gun hunt in Florida this year (unless something unexpected comes up) gave me some determination that chased away antsiness.  Later in the morning I saw a red-tailed hawk make an attempt at a squirrel in the distance, the woods were pretty excited for a couple of minutes after that.  Ultimately, however, despite being covered in a fine mist of sexy doe pee, no bucks showed up.

I climbed down around 10:30 and made it back to my desk shortly after Noon.  

Pines and Cypress from my stand, after the clouds started to clear.

 

Epilogue:

Thanksgiving is almost upon us.  I actually forgot until today that it's doe week on private land in the zone I live in, its pretty irrelevant this year, since I currently have no private land to hunt.   However, hope is with me because we will be going to SC to visit the family for the holiday.  My brother and cousin George both have stands for me to hunt, so we'll see what happens.  Next Saturday is a doe day up there.  Might need to buy a freezer when I get back.

Tragic plane crash in The Smokys.  Not really, just some dumbass threw a styrofoam glider off the Jump Off.